Hey there! Today I'm going to make a fanfic based on Dragon Quest VIII...though admittedly that wasn't the first one I played. The first one I played was Dragon Quest IX...that particular game was my second. Dragon Quest VI was number three...and Dragon Quest V is my fourth. Perhaps Dragon Quest IV will be my fifth. I don't know. I like playing those sort of games on my iPad.
And yes, I'm going to add a few twists of mine...I wanted to be creative when writing this fanfic, after all.
Chapter 1: A Thorn In One's Side
It had all started so swimmingly for King Trode. His daughter was going to get married soon. He was rather thrilled about it, to say the very least. Granted, his daughter Medea had said that she wasn't too fond of the King of Argonia's son, Prince Charmles. Apparently, he wasn't the best person in the world. The citizens of Argonia were in fact worried that he might end up becoming a tyrant...bad rulers came harsh taxes...if they got impoverished by his taxes, they weren't going to be too happy with him, to say the very least.
At the very least, his father was trying to make him a better person...but he didn't appear to having much success. He just wasn't much of a listener. In fact, he stuck earplugs in his ears every time he tried to lecture on him on being a proper ruler. Granted, King Clavius was a much better ruler than he probably would be...but of course he wasn't going to be around forever...even if people in Argonia kept shouting
But he could cross that bridge when he came to it. Surely, Prince Charmles wasn't such a terrible person. Then again, he heard that Prince Charmles liked to play football with puppies. It was a rather...unusual hobby.
Little did he know that at that very moment, his jester Dhoulmagus was hatching a diabolical scheme.
At that very moment, Princess Medea decided to pay her father a visit.
"Father, I think that something bad is going to happen today..." stated Princess Medea. She could feel it in her blood.
"Nonsense! Today is going to be the best day ever! And as soon as Prince Charmles completes his Argonia trials, he'll be able to marry you!" exclaimed King Trode.
"I'm not so sure if I want to marry him..." answered Princess Medea. Of course, as she was aware of, it was family tradition to marry the Argonian heir to the throne...but she knew that Prince Charmles would likely be demanding from her. Apparently, he thought that girls should be typical housewives rather than anything else.
Not only that, but she was more interested in taking a musical career than housekeeping. She enjoyed playing the piano in particular. She had lost count of how many songs that she could play on it.
In particular, Draco liked to hear her play the piano. He was sweet like that.
Of course, her father had heard a rumor that Prince Charmles was terrified of lizards. But surely that wouldn't hold him back, right? The Argon Lizards typically weren't that dangerous considering that they typically spent much of their time sleeping. And he didn't even need to slay the Argon Lizards in order to get their hearts...he just needed to make them spit them out. Oddly enough, it didn't appear to be their actual hearts considering that they were fine afterwards. It was weird.
Suddenly, King Trode heard noises from the chamber where they kept a certain scepter.
He immediately started to worry. According to what his father had told him, it contained a pure evil demon. It was not something that he should use as a back scratcher. He did not believe that demons actually existed, but he decided it would be best not to risk removing it from its protective circle. He had no idea what would happen, after all. And he did not care to find out.
Immediately, they went inside to investigate.
As it turned out, there was Dhoulmagus.
"What are you doing?" asked King Trode.
"I'm taking this scepter for myself, that's what!" exclaimed Dhoulmagus. It was time for him to get the fame that he felt that he deserved.
"Are you insane?!" bellowed the king. If he took the scepter away from its protective circle, bad things were going to happen. Bad, bad things. It was not something that Dhoulmagus should play with.
"Why are you even doing this?" asked Princess Medea.
"Let's just say that you never took me seriously..." answered Dhoulmagus.
King Trode threw a pie at Dhoulmagus's face.
"Hey!" exclaimed Dhoulmagus.
King Trode laughed at Dhoulmagus's expense.
A few days later, he gave Dhoulmagus a wedgie.
"My underpants!" bellowed Dhoulmagus.
Once again, King Trode simply laughed.
A few days later, he spied on Dhoulmagus while he was in the shower.
"Really?" asked the jester.
King Trode laughed once again.
"Whose laughing now?" asked Dhoulmagus as he took the scepter from its circle.
"This can't be good for anybody." answered King Trode. Somehow, he knew that Dhoulmagus was going to use that scepter for evil. Some mages were crazy.
Immediately, he cast a spell to turn King Trode into a spell.
"I'm hideous!" screamed the king. Of course, he wasn't that much of a looker to begin with.
"Father!" exclaimed Princess Medea.
"You're next, sweetheart." stated Dhoulmagus.
"Oh...no..." said Medea. What was she going to do?
Immediately, he cast a spell to transform Princess Medea into a horse.
A few seconds later, she began to neigh. At least she didn't end up getting turned into a donkey. People would think that she was stupid...which she wasn't.
"Well, off to visit another kingdom. I'm sure that they'll appreciate me as an advisor..." noted Dhoulmagus. He had gotten sick of being a jester to be honest. Personally he had some advice he wanted to give to kings...like not treating him as a laughingstock. Of course, with his new staff, that seemed rather unlikely.
Immediately, he left the boundaries of the protective circle.
However, surely afterwards, he began to feel strange. He kept hearing a voice telling him to do evil things...such as kill the descendants of the Seven Sages.
Eventually, he caved in...and he decided that he was going to do just that.
As it turned out, the first person on the hitlist was his teacher Master Rylus...who for some strange reason nobody other than Dhoulmagus had ever seen the face of. He was kind of...shady.
Wasting no time, he went off on his trip.
As he did so, thorns began to come out of his staff.
Quickly, they began to encircle the entire castle. Fortunately for Medea and Trode, they were inside the protective circle and missed being hit by that particular curse. Unfortunately for everyone else inside the castle, they ended up being transformed into plant people. Not exactly their idea of fun.
Well, except for one. As it turned out, one particular knight inside Trodain was immune to the curse. King Trode had in fact adopted him at an early age. Why you may ask? Well, he didn't exactly have many places to go. His parents had seemingly vanished off the face of the earth, it seemed.
Personally, King Trode wondered where he was from. Oddly enough, his daughter seemed rather smitten with him, though it was probably his imagination. He had decided to call him Draco...because for some strange reason he reminded him of a dragon.
Immediately, Draco began to examine his surroundings.
"Where am I?" asked the knight. Quickly, he began to realize that something was wrong. It appeared that some evil wizard had cast a curse on Trodain...he did admit that King Trode wasn't always that popular of a king...or the most good-looking.
Quickly, he began to look around the castle to investigate. It appeared that it was now covered with thorns...and so were everyone else inside the castle.
"Medea! King Trode!" exclaimed Draco.
Oddly enough, it appeared that they had heard him, because he heard King Trode calling out and a...neigh?
"What is going on here?" asked the knight. Perhaps one of the horses had broken out from the stable and was running loose? Sometimes that happened...but he was always able to fix that.
Suddenly, King Trode and Medea approached him. But they weren't exactly themselves. It appeared that someone had cast a curse on them.
"Oh dear...you don't exactly look the same, do you?" inquired Draco. Something was wrong.
"We've been cursed!" exclaimed King Trode.
"I can see that." answered the knight. He wondered who had done such a thing.
"And since when do you talk?" asked the king. He was under the impression that Draco was mute.
"I didn't have much to say, I suppose..." stated Draco. For some strange reason he also knew several other heroes that never seemed to talk...though he couldn't quite remember their names. Were they all off on RPG adventures somewhere? He heard that last year a silent hero had managed to slay Ogrodemir...and the year before that a silent hero managed to slay Mortamor.
Maybe he would end up slaying a demon lord one day. Who knows?
"Do you know who did this to you? And why the castle is covered with thorns? I feel sorry for the poor souls that were inside the castle when this happened..." noted the hero.
"It was Dhoulmagus!" exclaimed King Trode.
"Dhoulmagus?" asked Draco. For some strange reason he got the feeling that Dhoulmagus would stab King Trode in the back one day. Maybe he should have warned Trode of his suspicious. But it was too late now.
"Yes, Dhoulmagus!" bellowed the king.
Medea neighed once again.
"How do we break the curse?" asked Draco. He wished that he knew a decent witchdoctor.
"We must hunt down Dhoulmagus immediately! It's the only way to break the spell!" exclaimed King Trode. He did not want to spend the rest of his life looking like a troll. Trolls stole candy from babies. He did not steal candy from babies! Well, except maybe once. But he was asking for it!
Princess Medea neighed in agreement. She didn't want to have to spend the rest of her life as a horse...though admittedly she was a lot faster now.
Draco sighed. It looked like he was going on one heck of an adventure. Personally he was under the impression that he was going to be serving the rest of his life as a guard at Castle Trodain...not that he minded since he got to be with Princess Medea, who he was rather attached to.
But it appeared that he had no choice...not unless he wanted to spend the rest of his life living in a castle full of sharp thorns that would probably prick his finger when he touched them.
Immediately, he set out with King Trode and Medea, unaware that this was just a sign of things to come.
A few days later...
Draco flashbacked to that particular incident. Sometimes he had to remind himself how he had gotten into this mess. He wished that he could hurry up and simply find Dhoulmagus so that he could go home. But unfortunately it seemed Dhoulmagus was on a quest himself, judging from how much that he tended to move. Where was he headed?
Since then, he happened to have a best friend...in the form of a bandit in Yangus. Perhaps he should pick a better choice in friends...but Yangus seemed loyal enough. The more help they had to stop Dhoulmagus, the better.
Suddenly, his pet mouse Munchie crawled out of his pocket. Fortunately, he had been outside when the curse hit, so he didn't end up becoming a vegetable.
Curious, he appeared to have picked something up with his nose. Draco wondered what that was.
He was about to find out.
Out of nowhere, three slimes came leaping out of the bushes.
"Hi! We're going to pillage your carriage and make off with your gooluables!" exclaimed one of the slimes.
"No! Not my carriage! Do something!" screamed King Trode.
"Oh snap!" bellowed Draco.
"Get ready!" exclaimed Yangus.
Fortunately, those slimes did not have the power to back up those claims, and they went sent home packing after a brief RPG battle with Draco and Yangus.
"No fair! You must be goovincible..." noted the leader of the slimes as he went back into the forest.
"What's with the slime puns?" asked Draco.
Yangus shrugged. He wished that he knew the answer to that himself.
"Where's Medea?" questioned Draco.
"Over there!" exclaimed Yangus.
At that very moment, Princess Medea revealed herself. Perhaps she had been hiding from the evil slimes that wanted to rob them.
"There you are! You had me worried!" exclaimed King Trode.
Princess Medea neighed. She was really starting to hate all these random encounters. You never knew when they were going to show up. For some strange reason they always wanted about half of their gold coins.
Fortunately, it appeared that there was a direct path to Farebury from their campsite. Hopefully they wouldn't have any more random encounters for a while.
Oddly enough, there appeared to be a fire out in the distance, as there was smoke clearly visible. It looked like a job for the fire department.
Personally, Draco wondered what was going on.
Fortunately, their trip to Farebury was uneventful. By the time they got there however, it was sunset. Draco knew that the many, many monsters lurking the World Of Dragons got more aggressive at night, so he figured it might be best for him to stay in town for the time being.
Fortunately, he knew that there was a inn that they could stay for the night. That way they wouldn't be groaning like zombies when the sun came up.
As soon as he entered, he noticed that there appeared to be people glaring at King Trode. Was there something on his face?
He also noticed that there appeared to be a house that was burned down, as he had thought. It appeared that this was the work of an arsonist. He wondered who did it.
Shrugging, he decided to take a visit to the tavern. Hopefully the bunny girls there would provide pleasant company. They always seemed so friendly...though he wished that they would stop flirting with him so much.
I hoped you like this fanfic. I'm going to try to make this fanfic original even if it's based on Dragon Quest VIII. I like to take preexisting stories and make my own twist of them, to be honest. I think it's fun...though I will come up with something completely original every now and then.